The comments come as the president tours Gulf states and engages Iran.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that he’s “concerned” about the signals the Trump administration is sending on Israel, as President Trump’s public itinerary for his first trip to the Middle East of his second term does not include a visit to the longstanding U.S. ally.
While it’s always possible that an unscheduled stop in Israel could be added, this week’s tour through Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates comes amid several other developments that have startled Israel watchers, including ongoing nuclear talks with Iran and a decision to end the air campaign against the Houthis in Yemen apparently without a provision for attacks on Israel to stop.
“The combination of these things has got me concerned,” Pence told journalists in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning.
Asked by National Review about the appearance in recent weeks of distance between the United States and Israel, the former vice president in Trump’s first term said he was “disappointed” that Israel was not on Trump’s trip itinerary and not part of the recently announced decision on the Houthis.
On Iran nuclear talks, Pence has already made clear he’s concerned that negotiations “sound increasingly like President Obama’s failed nuclear deal,” as he wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. The former VP said Wednesday that early public statements on Iran from special envoy Steve Witkoff were “very disconcerting,” emphasizing that Iran’s nuclear program must be verifiably “dismantled or destroyed.”
Witkoff recently told Breitbart that Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities have to be “dismantled.” But the envoy has had to backtrack after initially saying last month that a deal with Tehran could limit the nuclear program, rather than eliminate it, by capping uranium enrichment. He also now says Iran could run a civilian nuclear program (though in the past this has been used as cover for weapons development).
On Wednesday, Pence said that if the world knows nothing else it should be that the United States “stands with Israel,” cautioning that any other signal could be dangerous for the region.
Pence, now working with the group he founded, Advancing American Freedom, has sought to strike a delicate balance during Trump’s second term, praising the administration in areas such as immigration enforcement while raising targeted concerns about Trump’s approach to Ukraine and his aggressive embrace of tariffs, among other issues.
The concerns about U.S. policy toward and relations with Israel, particularly for a president who forged close ties with the nation during his first term and successfully struck the regional Abraham Accords, have been compounded by several other developments, including talks to release the last living American hostage from Hamas’s clutches, while Israeli hostages remain. The Trump administration’s pending gift from Qatar of a luxury airplane also raises not only ethical and legal questions but geopolitical concerns, considering Qatar’s support for Hamas and hosting of its leadership.
As a resolution to Israel’s Gaza war against Hamas remains elusive, Trump’s agenda has nevertheless made clear that Israel is not forgotten. As Noah Rothman noted with regard to Trump’s overture to Syria on sanctions relief and meeting with the post-Assad country’s new president on Wednesday, the administration wants Syria to, in exchange, sign onto the Abraham Accords and deport Palestinian terrorists, among other concessions. In Saudi Arabia, Trump said it’s his “dream” for the Kingdom to join the Abraham Accords as well, though said that would be “in your own time.”
Meeting last month with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Trump underscored his close relationship with Israel, touting what he claimed as his own reputation for being “by far the best president that Israel has ever even thought of seeing.”
Netanyahu called him a “remarkable friend of the State of Israel.”
Over the weekend, according to reports, Netanyahu told Israeli officials that it’s now time for Israel to “wean” itself off American security aid, as it had done with economic aid. The remark was reportedly unprompted.